Aseptic cartons are commonly being used for marketing fruit juices, milk, or other liquid based food products, in quantities suited for individual servings, such as perhaps a quarter of a liter. Such cartons are formed of a paperboard material, laminated or coated with a plastic film, to be liquid-tight. Each carton is shaped somewhat as a solid block, having generally parallel opposed pairs of side and end walls, each perpendicular to the others. Like cartons are thus suited to be grouped together tightly against one another, for marketing as a multi-pack in a paperboard container or package.
One such container or package is of a generally economical wrap-around style, represented by a blank having adjacent side, top and bottom main panels hinged sucessively to one another, that are folded around the grouped cartons, and having lapped panels that are then secured together. The package is thus somewhat open-ended. The cartons are held in place within the package by small gusset panels, hinged off of the main panels of the package, that span across and partically close the open ends of the package, and that overlie part of the end cartons in the package.
The cost of the container or package is closely related to the size of the blank, and of course, the larger the blank, the more expensive the package. The blank that forms this type of open-ended but gusseted package is quite compact and small, and thus economical, as the package does not completely enclose the cartons, but leaves the end cartons at least partically exposed.
Nesting of adjacent package blanks is also important in reducing waste in the overall board requirement of the package. As only limited nesting of blanks of adjacent gusseted packages is possible, because of the small gusset panels, the effective overall blank width turns out to be virtually equal to the width of the finished container or package, plus the width of the gusset panels hinged off of the opposite sides of the main panels.
This type of package moreover requires equipment for tucking the gusset panels in place, as the blank in wrapped around the arranged cartons.
Nonetheless, the package offers stability, strength, and large side and top panels for advertising copy, and is quite popular for marketing these aceptic cartons arranged as a multi-pack.